MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / Oct. 5, 2012) – Calling it a ‘gross ignorance of the law’ and a ‘blatant double-standard’, the youth group Anakbayan criticized the statement of Commission on Elections Commissioner Sixto Brillantes regarding the petitions for disqualification of pro-Aquino party list group Akbayan.
Just this week, youth groups Anakbayan, League of Filipino Students, National Union of Students in the Philippines, Student Christian Movement in the Philippines, and Kabataang Artista para sa Tunay na Kalayaan, along with labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno, filed with the poll body the disqualification of Akbayan on the grounds that the party and its nominees are adjuncts of the government.
But Brillantes claimed that there was nothing wrong with government officials participating in the party list race.
“Commissioner Brillantes should brush up on his law. The rules on the partylist system have been clarified by the 2001 Supreme Court decision of Ang Bagong Bayani. Not only does it reiterate the need for partylist representatives to belong to margnalized sectors, it also explicitly forbids the likes of Akbayan from participating” Vencer Crisostomo, national chairperson of Anakbayan, said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
He said in the said decision, the Supreme Court laid out an eight-point guideline on the qualifications for those parties and candidates participating in the party list race, including: Party list nominees must belong to marginalized and underrepresented sectors and party list groups must not be an adjunct of, or a project organized or an entity funded or assisted by, the government.
“How can high officials of the Aquino government be marginalized or underrepresented and more importantly, even if we grant for the sake of argument that they are, the Supreme Court ruling still forbids them from participating as adjuncts of the government,” Crisostomo said.
He said Akbayan’s 2nd nominee, Ibarra Gutierrez II, is a presidential undersecretary for political affairs. Their 3rd nominee, Angelina Ludovice-Katoh, is a commissioner of the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor.
And other Akbayan national officials and former representatives also occupy high posts in the Aquino administration: Ronald Llamas, former president, is now presidential advisor for political affairs; Joel Rocamora, former president, is now head of the National Anti Poverty Commission; Etta Rosales, former president and representative, is now head of the Commission on Human Rights; Percival Cendena, former chairperson, is now a commissioner of the National Youth Commission.
Crisostomo said the statement of Brillantes is an indicative of double standard in the light of the COMELEC’s refusal to recognize a party list group of rank-and-file government employees.
Previously, the poll body denied the recognition of the Courage GE party list on the grounds that government employees were already over-represented.
“What is bizarre in the COMELEC’s reasoning is that they define government officials, with high salaries and in a position of power, as under-represented and marginalized, yet they do not think that regular government employees belong in the same category,” Crisostomo said.
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